The value of term limits in Colorado
Re: “Term limits have reached their limit,” May 21 editorial.
The Post’s editorial misses the point. The true issue is whether term limits are enough. The problems discussed with term limits are not caused by the limits themselves but by the failure of the electoral system to build a pool of qualified and dedicated candidates who have a fair chance at being elected. Two additional measures are needed: clean elections and non-partisan elections.
In 1998, Arizona voters approved a clean-elections law creating full public funding of statewide and legislative offices. The results have been striking for the state. Public offices are no longer easily for sale to the highest bidder or the wealthy. The pool of candidates has increased, as has voter turnout.
Term limits and clean-election laws, however, are not enough. The gerrymandering of districts in Colorado has created far too many “safe havens” of single-party rule. It makes little sense that county and local officials such as sheriffs, county commissioners, assessors, coroners and legislators should be elected based on party only, not on qualifications. More importantly, why should officials with election oversight (secretary of state and county clerks) ever be elected in a partisan race?
Rather than repeal term limits, we need to enact a constitutional amendment to complete the solution and mandate clean, non-partisan elections.
Doug Gilbert, Castle Rock
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You made some valid arguments about the adverse effects of term limits, but I am not convinced we should totally repeal the limits.
Personally, I am very happy that district attorneys like Bill Ritter don’t get to spend 25 years cozying up to the police department.
I am also glad that the legislative leaders have limited tenure, so they can’t roadblock popular legislation by sending it to a friend’s committee to die.
The federal courts rescinded term limits for congressmen, but we did pressure Congress into rotating committee chairmen after a few years.
I could see raising the term limits to 12 years or letting leaders run for an extra term.
Philip Sagstetter, Highlands Ranch
The benefits of speaking two languages
Re: “Second language a point of pride,” May 23 E.J. Dionne column.
I wish to strongly applaud E.J. Dionne’s column about the benefit of knowing more than one language. I teach English as a Second Language at Front Range Community College. Dionne says that “the evidence is overwhelming that Spanish speakers and their kids are as aware as anyone of the importance of learning English.” Indeed, I have had an adult student who held down two jobs, took care of five kids, and showed up at 9:30 two days a week for two hours of English because it was so important to her, for her job and for the education of her children, to speak English more fluently.
Nicholas Kristof wrote in The New York Times this week about the need to encourage more young journalists, and, indeed more young Americans generally, to travel abroad, and to learn another language.
Yet, we have this enormous pool of individuals in this country, many of them “illegal immigrants,” who know two languages and whose children are bilingual. Rather than see them as a great resource, many of our citizens want to “kick ’em out” and “keep ’em out” with a giant wall on the border.
Richard W. Jonsen, Louisville
Access to discount prescription drugs
Senate Bill 1 is the wrong prescription for Colorado. It seeks to provide access to discount prescription drugs for Colorado’s uninsured citizens – a laudable goal and one that we passionately share. Unfortunately, this bill has significant problems.
SB 1 calls for the implementation of a multi-state drug purchasing pool. Inherent in this program is the use of a preferred-drug list, or PDL.
The state of Maine has had a PDL since 2001, and disturbing trends have been reported as a result of it. More than one-third of patients surveyed were denied prescribed medications, and many patients reported worsening medical conditions.
PDLs result in increased expenditures to rectify the health problems of the vulnerable Medicaid population caused by denial of access to prescription drugs. This cost-shifting will jeopardize the dollars projected to fund the prescription drug program promised for the uninsured.
SB 1 also inadvertently provides an incentive to businesses to drop prescription drug coverage from employee health plans – employees could then secure prescription drugs from the state program.
As leaders of organizations that work every day to help our disabled, elderly, poor and uninsured citizens, we care a great deal about lowering the cost of prescription medications. Unfortunately, SB 1 is not the answer.
We hope that Gov. Bill Owens will veto the program so that a better solution can be found.
Cathy Benavidez-Clayton, President, Colorado Association of Hispanic Nurses
Margie Cook, President, Colorado Council of Black Nurses
Rob Hernandez, Former State Senator and Founder of Hispanic Health Care Advocates
Julie Reiskin, Executive Director, Colorado Cross Disabilities Coalition
Carol Ann Reynolds, Executive Director, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Colorado
Let priests, nuns marry
It seems to me that the time has come for the Catholic Church to consider letting priests and nuns to be married.
What with the very recent banishment of a high-ranking priest affter allegations that he molested and ruined the lives of young parishoners, as well as hundreds of young Catholics over the world having had their lives destroyed, something has to be done besides moving the priests around to different areas, where they continue to destroy more young lives.
What the Catholic Church has done is to forbid those who want to spread the “word” from experiencing the love between man and woman, as nature intended.
Is the church big enough, strong enough, to take on this challenge and free its people to know they are not born in “sin” and to allow the nuns and priests to love and be married and have children of their own?
J. Siegel, Westminster
Drilling in the ANWR
We can’t take our eyes off of the GOP leadership for a minute. They missed getting it into the energy bill, where it belonged. Then they tried to tack it to the defense bill, then the budget. Bouncing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into HR 5429 is another sleight of hand by the current GOP leadership.
Please let Rep. Bob Beauprez and Sen. Wayne Allard know that we are on to them. From past votes, we know that Sen. Ken Salazar already knows the importance of the environment and the earth’s future.
Stephen Bielfeldt, Lakewood
National park system
Re: “From White House to Mesa Verde’s Long House; 1st lady at 100th birthday,” May 24 news story.
While Laura Bush stated the Bushes’ support for national parks at her recent visit to Mesa Verde, our national park system is hurting badly.
The Bush administration has ordered the national parks to move toward functioning at 80 percent of their operating budgets by 2011, and is proposing an additional $100.5 million budget cut from the parks’ $2.1 billion budget next year. These budget cuts, combined with increasing costs, are forcing serious reductions in services, and do nothing to address the increasing state of disrepair of park facilities.
How can you possibly support preserving these monumental sites for future generations if you are not willing to invest the money that it takes?
Bettina M. Voelker, Golden
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